Notes on using BLAST
BLAST provides an option for tabular output that is easily parsed. Use the -m 8 option for tabular output, or the -m 9 option to include headers.
blastall -i input.fa -d /path/to/db.fa -p blastn -m 8
Assumes that db.fa is in a directory that also has a correctly formatted database. This can be achieved by:
formatdb -i db.fa -p F
The fields for tabular BLAST output are:
 
1  | 
  Query  | 
  The query sequence id  | 
2  | 
  Subject  | 
  The matching subject sequence id  | 
3  | 
  % id  | 
  
  | 
4  | 
  alignment length  | 
  
  | 
5  | 
  mistmatches  | 
  
  | 
6  | 
  gap openings  | 
  
  | 
7  | 
  q.start  | 
  
  | 
8  | 
  q.end  | 
  
  | 
9  | 
  s.start  | 
  
  | 
10  | 
  s.end  | 
  
  | 
11  | 
  e-value  | 
  
  | 
12  | 
  bit score  | 
  
  | 
